TEAM PLAYER'S DRIVERS ARE SECOND AND THIRD FASTEST AT HISTORIC NIGHT PRACTICE SESSION IN CHAMP CAR WORLD SERIES Paul
Tracy and Patrick Carpentier of Team Player's clocked the second and third
fastest times respectively in a Champ Car World Series practice session on
Thursday that marked the first time laps were run under the lights. The historic
session, in preparation for Saturday night's 250-lap race, took place on the
1.032-mile Milwaukee oval. Tracy,
the co-leader of the drivers' standings, registered the quickest lap - 21.444
seconds (173.251 mph) - and was four miles an hour faster than his closest rival
in the first practice session, conducted in the afternoon. He
continued on a blistering pace in the evening, moving into P1 with a lap of
21.075 seconds (176.285 mph / 283.703 km/h). But about halfway through the
session, Tracy grazed the turn 4 wall and the upper arm on the car's right
rear suspension was bent. Tracy did not return for additional laps in an effort
to improve his time. In the waning moments of the session, Mexico's Michel
Jourdain Jr. put in the quickest lap (21.040) nudging Tracy out of the top spot.
At one point in the session, Canadians had the three best times. Alex Tagliani
was third behind Tracy and Carpentier before ending up eighth.
"I got too high and lost the front end at the exit,"
explained Tracy of the incident that ended his session. "I'm a bit
disappointed. I wish I would have been there until the end, but we showed that
we had a very fast car in both of the practice sessions, and that's very
encouraging." Tracy, who stressed the importance of being able to score
maximum points this weekend to open up a lead in the drivers' standings, said
neither the lights nor the tire temperature in the cool of the evening were a
problem. "I didn't find that the lights were all that bright," he added.
"We could probably even use just a bit more lighting, but CART has done a good
job setting things up for this first night racing. I did see some shadows from
the wall at certain places on the track, but it's not something that hinders
us. And I don't think tire temperature will be a problem. We can race with no
problem if it doesn't get any colder. Tonight it was in the 14-degree
(Celsius) range, and the tire temperature wasn't affected much." Carpentier, who still owns the track record with a
sizzling lap of 20.028 seconds that he ran in 1998, was eighth in the afternoon
session before showing significant improvement under the lights. His third-place
time was 21.146 seconds (175.693 mph / 282.750 km/h) "The car was a lot better in the evening session than in
the afternoon," Carpentier remarked. "For the second session, we basically
took Paul's setups because they had worked well for him in the afternoon, and
we simply made some adjustments along with that to suit my style. The changes
worked because we ended up with the second and third fastest times. I thought I
had a good shot at doing better near the end of the session because I was on a
new set of tires, and whenever I was on new tires I did well. But the yellow
came out just as I was about to go for a hot lap, and we didn't get that
chance." Carpentier said that racing at night is "more like tunnel vision. You have a wider view during the day. It was a bit like riding on a snowmobile; everything seemed narrower. But the lighting itself didn't bother me. The lights are high enough so that they don't affect you. Also, when you come up behind a car, you think you're farther away than you actually are. Things seem to go a lot quicker, but that's just a perception." Racing fans can follow
Team Player's progress at the Milwaukee Mile 250 throughout the three days by
logging on to the team's website at www.teamplayers.ca.
They can also watch the race live on The Sports Network at 9:00 p.m. ET on
Saturday evening.
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